How big is your God?

I was recently reading Brennan Manning's The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus where he quotes from Jim Wallis' The Call to Conversion "Modern conversion brings Jesus into our lives rather than bringing us into his" (80). This is an intriguing thought. We have been taught to say, "have you accepted Jesus into your heart?" In so doing it is as if we imagine some little corner of our self where we might just allow Jesus the privilege to take up residence, and perhaps even allow him to rearrange the furniture if he wishes. We could then meet with him there and he could give us all sorts of great advice about how to be better and more moral or righteous human beings. Maybe he will even give us some special benefits, like less problems or more money. Not a bad idea, having God hang out with us.

We perhaps ought to be asking whether or not we have come into the life of Jesus. We don't tend to ask it that way because we have so little of an idea of what it means to be lost in the vastness if his heart. But the reality is, He calls us to abide in him (John 15), to see our lives as hidden in his life (Col. 3:3), to measure together with all the saints the eternal dimensions of his unending love (Eph. 3:18).

If we just see Jesus just as filling something in our lives we miss the point of salvation. Salvation means that my life is put into His life. that my direction is a response to the move of His heart. It isn't about us coming to the place where we decide that we might have enough trust to let him in to our life, but rather, enough trust in him to allow ourselves to lean back and rest in the ocean vastness of His overwhelming love. He doesn't dispense advice here on how to be a better person. Instead he expects that his life now flows through ours as we understand our place in him. Surrounded and overwhelmed by his love, I will not simply become a more moral person, I will react out of love to those around me, putting their interests ahead of mine, seeing their need, moved by compassion and inviting them to also bring their life to rest in the arms of Jesus.